[Gambas-user] Finally/Catch and Return: How is that meant to be used?

[Martin Fischer]

> Il 14/09/23 16:48, Martin Fischer ha scritto:
>>>
>>> I think (but I'm not sure) that this answer your question:
>>>
>>> http://gambaswiki.org/wiki/lang/finally?nl
>>>
>>> Regards
>>>
>>> Gianluigi
>>>
>>
>> Gianluigi,
>>
>> thanks for the reference, but I'm aware of that already.
>> My problem comes from this harmless looking paragraph in the document
>> you referenced:
>>
>>     This does not completely Ensure that code is run no matter what.
>>     If RETURN is used to exit a function before Finally then the
>>     Finally part will only run if an error is raised.
>>
>> This is a substantial deviation from "Finally"-semantics in other
>> languages. This is why I'm surprised...
>>
>> Regards,
>> Martin
>>
>>
>> ----[ http://gambaswiki.org/wiki/doc/netiquette ]----
>
>
> Hi Martin,
>
> Many thanks you for the explanations, but it seems to me that if all
> languages have to follow dogmas why there is so many and all different?
>
> Regards
>
> Gianluigi
>
>
> ----[ http://gambaswiki.org/wiki/doc/netiquette ]----

Hi Gianluigi,

for me, it's not about dogma. I'm fine with different languages solving
problems differently. A C program uses different patterns than a C++
program or a Python or a Java program.

My point is that during the evolution of languages some patterns appear
over and over again. Because there is a need to solve very similar
problems in these languages!

Let's take for example the pattern "function". This thing takes
parameters from the caller, does something and returns something to the
caller back. This solves the problem of abstracting functionality that
has to be used at multiple places with only slight variations (the
parameters). And so on...

This is such a common problem in programming languages that most of them
have "functions".

Now, let's move to the Finally-pattern. This stands for an abstraction
that allows you to execute a block of code as final operation of a
function, no matter how this function was left (normal return or
exception). As such it allows you to clean up resources allocated during
the function very easily and reliably. Again, this is such a common
problem that many languages have a means to implement this pattern.

You might be aware of the old VisualBasic way of solving this problem.
Yes, you could do it, but it was effort and error-prone. Maybe this is
the reason why gambas decided to offer a Finally pattern.

My surprise was just that gambas implements this Finally-abstraction in
a leaky way. Means: the usual "Finally guaranties that the finally-block
is executed no matter how you leave the function" does not hold. Instead
a weaker guarantee is implemented that does not solve the complete
problem that is normally solved by Finally.

But: I do not complain. I just want to understand how gambas works.

Regards,
Martin